Module 2

1. What are your thoughts on Mortimer Adler’s stance against alphabetization (p. 30)? What do you think he means by “inherent in all things to be learned we should be able to find inner connections”?
   
   I understand Adler’s stance, but I don’t necessarily agree with it.  The alphabet is a very arbitrary way to arrange information, and it completely disregards the connections to be found within the knowledge.  However, even the print version of the Encyclopedia Britannica contains “See” and “See also” references in an attempt to represent those connections.  The problem is that in the print world, an arrangement must be decided upon that is easy for the information seeker to navigate.   The connections are not always easy to discern, and not all information seekers will conceive the same connections.  While the alphabetical arrangement is not ideal, it serves its purpose in the print realm of knowledge, in my opinion.
   
   
2. What are your thoughts on Weinberger’s last sentences in this chapter: “Now we know that not everything has its place. Everything has its places – the joints at which we choose to bend nature”? Write about some of the joints of nature that are important to you in what you “know” about life and the world. For example, your religious and/or political beliefs.
   
   The digital world allows us to represent those “joints” as we choose to bend our own personal version of nature.  We can represent all of the places in which everything belongs.  We are freed from the requirements that a thing must live in a single physical space.  It’s brilliant.  I see the joints most clearly in my family.  There are different ways to “bend” the nature of my family, depending on how many branches of the family tree are gathered.  When the entire family is gathered together, there are people there that I do not know very well, and I discern the “joints” differently than when I am with my immediate family.  If my mom is present, her presence creates another entire series of “joints” related to my close and personal experiences with her.  In Weinberger’s second order of order, my family encounters would need to be categorized in a single location, no doubt called “family.”  In my reality, there are natural separations among my experiences within my family that cannot be represented by a single category.